


Martha and Yaz Adventure in Time and Space

by Annariel



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27668435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: Martha is in possession of an unreliable vortex manipulator that won't take her home.  En route she collects Yaz and together they have adventures.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8
Collections: Public Call - Doctor Who fic exchange 2020





	1. Wilshaw Industrial Estate, Sheffield, 2019

**Author's Note:**

  * For [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/gifts).



> No, I've no idea where Martha got the vortex manipulator from: Jack Harkness probably.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha meets Yaz for the first time.

Martha cursed under her breath as she emerged from the vortex. The vortex manipulator had been on the fritz for weeks and its behaviour had become increasingly unreliable. This was now the fourth hop in a row however where she hadn't arrived where she expected, namely her nice comfortable flat.

It was dark and felt slightly damp. Martha unclipped the torch from her belt and switched it on. She was in a tunnel. It looked manufactured which was reassuring up to a point. Martha closed her eyes and attempted to feel if there was any kind of airflow that might give her a sense of direction. She couldn't feel anything, on the other hand the air smelled fairly fresh.

Shining the torch around Martha spotted what looked like a junction up ahead. That seemed like as good a direction to move in as any. When she got there she found an arrow chalked on the wall, pointing along the tunnel. Martha shrugged and followed it. Three arrows later she could hear the sound of uneven footsteps up ahead of her. Someone was walking slowly. If Martha was any judge, they had an injured leg. She turned right at the next junction, following the arrow and her torch illuminated a female police officer limping along with the aid of stick.

"Hey!" Martha called.

The police officer turned around fast, shining her own torch back down the tunnel and blinding Martha. As her eyes adjusted to the light, Martha could see she was face to face with a young south Asian woman who was grinning happily at her.

"Am I pleased to see you," the woman said, in a Yorkshire accent.

Martha smiled back at her. "I'm pleased to see you too. Hello, my name's Martha Jones, Dr. Jones, and you look like you've hurt your leg."

The woman's smile wavered ever so slightly and then steadied. "Yeah, I fell down a hole. I'm Yasmin Khan, WPC Khan, but you can call me Yaz."

"OK, Yaz, sit down and let me take a look at that foot."

Yaz eased herself down to the floor of the tunnel and Martha crouched in front of her, watching as she winced where Martha felt her ankle.

"Good news, I don't think its broken, but its swelling quite badly. You'll not be running anywhere fast for a week or so."

Yaz made a face. "That could be problem."

"Oh?"

She nodded and pointed up above them. "Bit of dodginess up there. I'm not quite sure what's going on but maybe something a bit wibbley wobbley timey wimey and definitely a bit on the low down."

Martha looked up startled. "Wibbley wobbley timey wimey?"

Yaz nodded. "Wibbley wobbley timey wimey," and then she smiled like they were sharing a joke.

"Have I met you before?"

"I've met you, but it could be after from your point of view, if you see what I mean."

Martha sighed, "I do. What now?"

Yaz shrugged. "Strap up my ankle, find some stairs, defeat the bad guys?"

* * *

About ten minutes later they found a metal staircase, leading up into an open hatchway.

"Looks a bit like the underside of a space ship," Martha remarked.

"Looks like a regular building up top, in the middle of an industrial estate. It's blocky, ugly and dull. The locals say it got put up overnight so..." Yaz shrugged.

"So you went to investigate?"

Yaz half nodded and half shrugged.

Martha frowned, "Even so, a spaceship that looks like an industrial unit? Seems a bit unlikely."

She caught Yaz's gaze momentarily.

"Perception filter," they said in unison.

Martha laughed and shook her head. "Can you manage these steps?"

Yaz nodded. Martha noticed though that her breathing sped up as she climbed. She was doing all right but Martha didn't fancy Yaz's chances if they had to start running.

The hatchway led them into a hold. Bits of equipment and boxes lay tumbled about the area in no kind of order. Martha spotted some familiar panels, with spherical adornments.

"That's Dalek technology!" she said moving over to examine them.

"I don't think the lot upstairs are Daleks. Difficult to be sure but... I don't know... they didn't give off a daleky vibe, if you see what I mean."

"I get the idea. Less ranting about extermination than you'd expect."

Yaz opened a box and peered inside. "I don't think this is Dalek technology. It looks sort of organic." She made a face and lifted out a strange cylindrical thing. It was a dull grey in colour and seemed slightly squishy. Slowly, where Yaz was holding it, it started to glow. She hurriedly put it back in the box and stepped back, wiping her hands together.

Martha stepped over to stand by her side and poked at the things in the box. There were about a dozen of them lying side by side. "Yeah, I don't think that's Dalek technology either. What have we got?" she pondered. "Ship arrives with a perception filter. We've got bits of Dalek tech. Bits of some other tech." She looked around her. "Not much sense of organisation. I'm guessing scavengers of some kind."

"Could be, I mean I spoke to the manager upstairs and, well, I don't think he realised I was law enforcement originally, and when he did, he panicked and just pushed me into the waste chute or whatever it was brought me down here. Which makes me think they're a bit dodgy but not actually murderous."

"So scavengers, who like to keep a low profile and who probably haven't done their homework about the Earth. I wonder what they're after?"

* * *

They found three more holds full of miscellaneous technology and equipment including, in the third, definitely Earth identifiable stuff though, as Yaz observed, it mostly just looked as if they'd been down to the local dump and scavenged all the electrics.

"Come to think if it, there was a report of a break-in at the dump last week."

"What really? We've come to Earth to raid your landfill?"

Yaz shrugged. "I'm sure stranger things have happened."

At that moment the distinct sound of a small explosion echoed through from the the next room. Martha hurried to the door and pressed her hand against it to see if the heat would tell her if a fire was raging on the other side. It felt cool, so she pushed it open carefully, feeling Yaz hovering by her shoulder.

The other side was very clearly an engine room. Some of it was on fire. It was also, Martha quickly recognised, cobbled together from multiple technologies including a lot of discarded Earth electronics. If she was guessing, she'd have said someone had been in the middle of some kind of improvised patch up job and it had gone wrong.

"This does not look good!" Yaz said.

Martha looked around for anything that might resemble a fire extinguisher.

"Garak, Garak! Report the state of the engines!"

Martha looked around, desperately trying to locate the source of the voice.

"That looks like comms!" Yaz pointed to a console with what, at a stretch, could have been a speaker grill built in.

Martha stared down at the buttons, made an educated guess, and said, "This is the engine room. Can you hear me?"

"Garak? Is that you?"

"No mate. We're Martha and Yaz," Yaz said over Martha's shoulder.

Martha looked around. "I can't see anyone else here, but a lot of this room is on fire. I think you should evacuate."

There were a lot of dials and a lot of lights flashing. Admittedly they weren't flashing red, but you never knew with alien visual cortexes.

"We can not evacuate. Where will be go? The natives here will slaughter us."

Martha winced. "Not necessarily. I'm going to give you the contact details for an organisation called UNIT."

"UNIT has been closed down," Yaz said.

"What?"

"UNIT has been closed. Government cuts."

Martha sighed. "Scratch that, I'm going to give you the contact details for an organisation called Torchwood. Contact them as soon as you get out. They will help." ... possibly ... she added mentally but she didn't see any other options just then.

Yaz was pushing buttons. "I'm not an engineering expert, but I think all this will blow any minute."

"We need to get back down into the tunnel system."

"I'm not sure I can move that fast. You better go ahead."

Martha looked down at her Vortex Manipulator. "I've got this but it's on the blink. We could end up anywhere."

Yaz grinned. "Sounds better than blowing up!"

"OK, well, hold on!"

Yaz grabbed hold of her arm. Martha typed in the coordinates that should take her back home. They faded out of view just as the engine room exploded.


	2. Penrith Street, Sheffield, 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yaz meets Martha for the first time

Yaz had been walking home for a long time. At first she'd not been paying too much attention to her surroundings. She wasn't exactly deep in the black dog, but the depression was lurking around the edges of her awareness and she'd not really been paying attention to anything except the rhythm of one foot in front of the other but now she stopped, alerted by something she couldn't quite place, and took in her surroundings. It was Penrith street, about two blocks from home, on her regular route. She felt like she'd been walking a long time but that was probably just a feeling. She started walking again.

Some time later she looked about herself and realised she was still on Penrith Street. This time, as she began to walk, she paid more attention. Just what was going on here?

She stopped outside Number 3 because she should have passed Number 3 ages back. She began counting house numbers: 5, 7, 9, 11 and then seamlessly it felt like number 3 rolled around again. Yaz spun on her heels and walked back in the other direction: 3, 1, 273. It was as if the street were forming an endless loop.

She put her hands on her hips and took a good long look at the road that stretched out in each direction. Her mind skated around the possibilities. She could ignore the weirdness of the road and try a side street, or she could knock on someone's door, but what would she say if they answered? Or she could phone home and ask for a lift perhaps, though they'd want to know why she wanted a lift from Penrith Street.

At that moment her phone rang. Yaz didn't recognise the number but under the circumstances she was curious to see who it was, "Hello, Yaz?"

"Yaz, thank god," said a strange voice, "where are you?"

"I'm on Penrith Street. Excuse me, who is this?"

"Martha."

"Martha who?"

There was a moment's silence on the end of the phone and then the voice said. "OK. I can see this has all gone a bit wibbley wobbley timey wimey. I'm Martha Jones. Yaz, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you."

"Seventeen," Yaz said defensively.

It sounded like the someone swore, though it was quiet enough that Yaz wasn't sure.

"OK, Yaz, is anything strange going on near you. I mean stranger than this phone call."

"I don't know," Yaz said cautiously, "the street seems a bit... unending."

"Yeah, it's probably a kind of folded loop in time. You keep going back to the start of the street, yeah?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"OK, well, my temporal theory is not all it might be so I'm making some educated guesses here. But I think its sealed you in to prevent you accidentally running into an older version of yourself."

"And older version of myself?"

"Yes, Yaz, I know you're feeling sceptical but just go with it please."

"OK."

"Right now, I'm outside the two loops, so if I try to move to your position and activate my vortex manipulator (don't worry about what that is just now), then I might manage to sync up with you. Where are you exactly?"

"Just outside number 273."

"OK, give me a minute."

There was the sound of running feet and then Martha said. "OK. Activating the manipulator now. Watch out for me!"

Yaz looked around herself curiously. About two feet away, directly outside the front gate of number 273, the air began to distort and elongate until it looked like a long tunnel. At the far end of the tunnel Yaz could see a black woman in a red jacket waving frantically at her. Yaz took a cautious step towards her.

"Martha?"

"Yeah, that's me! Can you get to me."

Yaz took another step forward and stood uncertainly on the edge of the tunnel. She reached her hand forward and watched as it seemed to stretch. Martha reached out her own hand and suddenly they met. A firm warm grip closed about Yaz's hand and pulled. She found herself stepping forwards and suddenly she was on Penrith Street again, almost chest to chest with Martha. Martha grinned and took a step back, releasing her hand.

"God you look young. No offense."

"I'm seventeen," Yaz pointed out again.

"I know. Sorry for all the weirdness. I promise it will make sense some day."

"You could explain it now."

"Maybe, but I've another Yaz to go and find before she stumbles down this road. Can you get home from here?"

"It's just around the corner."

Martha grinned. "Good!".

Yaz wanted to ask more but something about the expression on Martha's face stopped her. A raised eyebrow and faint expectation of something to come, but not right now. Yaz walked to the corner. She turned to look back at Martha who waved.

"See you around sometime!" Martha called.

Yaz walked around the corner.


	3. Towards the End of the Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha and Yaz meet up with the Doctor

Martha and Yaz popped out of the time vortex to be greeted by a darkened sky and a chill wind. They were standing in a barren landscape, scattered with rocks and with gravelly shale under foot. Dark shapes that could have been mountains loomed in the distance.

"Where now, I wonder?" Yaz said.

Martha looked up. There weren't many stars to be seen. "Not Earth. At least not any time near the 21st century."

Yaz looked up too. "Back end corner of the universe?"

"Or the very end of it."

Martha felt Yaz give a little shiver beside her. "Still, best not to be too discouraged."

Martha slipped an arm through hers. "Ever the optimist, eh?"

Yaz shrugged. "I just take the downs with the ups, I suppose. I wouldn't have missed traveling with either you or the Doctor for worlds. Even if it means getting stuck a the end of the Universe."

"We're not quite stuck, but it would be good to find a power source if we can. This thing seems to be running low on juice as well as getting more erratic with every jump."

"There's light coming from somewhere. We can see more than we should be able to with just stars."

Martha had to agree, there was a diffuse pale glow across the barren landscape, coming from somewhere up ahead of them, judging by the shadows.

"What's that movement?" Yaz asked.

Martha followed her gaze. A moment later she saw what Yaz had seen, a flicker of motion among the rocks.

"Oi! Friend or Foe?" she called out.

There was a chittering sound and then something, half scorpion, half spider, half a dozen things Martha couldn't put a name to emerged at speed over the rocks. Large claws were raised in the air and snapping.

"Run?" asked Yaz.

"Run!" agreed Martha.

They set off away from the scorpion/crab/spider thing - hearing its continued motion behind them. The shale shifted under their feet and Martha struggled to prevent her ankles from twisting.

"This way!" Yaz shouted, veering to the left.

Martha saw a trail of flat rock. Not a path exactly, but not the gravel they were running through. Behind her the chittering grew in volume followed by a high-pitched wailing sound that seemed to echo of the tall rocks. They sped up once they reached the flat area. It was smooth and ran straight and Martha felt more convinced it was a path of some kind, not a random feature of the landscape. It plunged downwards suddenly, into an unseen ravine that opened up before them to reveal a valley. A glowing tower stood in the centre casting pale light over everything.

"Wow!" Yaz didn't stop running but her amazement was writ large on her face.

Martha found herself grinning too, but she paused to look back. The creature seemed to have stopped on the edge of the ravine, its claws still raised. She stopped running, grateful for a moment to catch her breath. "Maybe it doesn't like the light?" she said.

Yaz paused ahead of her. "Or maybe its just catching its breath. Come on, let's get to the tower!"

Martha nodded to herself and jogged along after Yaz, but didn't up her speed to a full run again. The place was eerily silent. When they came to the base of the tower, they stopped. It was made out of a smooth white material that Martha didn't recognise but which glowed from within. The tower's base was circular, several meters in diameter. It made Martha think of a lighthouse. Windows opened up out of it in a spiral. They walked slowly around until them came to a door.

"What do you reckon?" Martha asked. She reached out her hand.

The strange wail sounded again. She looked up to see the nightmarish creature, still at the edge of the valley, waving its claws at them.

"It definitely doesn't like something down here," Yaz said.

Martha looked back at the door. "Let's be careful, yeah? We need power but we don't need to make too many assumptions."

She placed her hand against the door. The wall thrummed slightly under her touch and the light flared up slightly. She felt a slight tingling in her palm. Then the door slid smoothly aside. The interior was much like the exterior with a spiral stair leading up around the outside of central chamber. Martha stuck her head inside and looked upward. It looked like there were floors, up above. Cautiously she moved inside. Yaz picked a stone up off the ground and placed it in the doorway.

"Just in case."

Martha nodded and stepped more confidently over the threshold.

"Onwards and upwards?" she asked.

"Onwards and upwards."

They climbed. The first room looked like some kind of lounge. Soft-looking white chairs were arranged around a central space. They also glowed slightly and seemed similar enough to the walls and floor that Martha wondered if they were made from the same substance. She poked at one a little dubiously and it yielded to her touch. She glanced across at Yaz.

"They look inviting," Yaz said and her voice was full of suspicion.

"Yeah, they do, don't they."

Martha flexed her hand where she had opened the door at the bottom of the tower. She felt something but wasn't sure what exactly. "I don't like it," she said.

Yaz looked around. "What if, just like we're looking for power, this thing is looking for power. What if we're food."

"And we're inside it already. Not a pleasant thought."

"Well it's only a theory, but that crab thing was afraid of something."

Martha weighed the options. "Leave and try to find somewhere else?"

Yaz gave her a sceptical look. "Yeah, like we'd ever do anything sensible like that."

Martha grinned and had to acknowledge the truth of that. There was no way they weren't going to check every floor of the tower.

"OK, let's get on with it, but no touching anything with our bare hands, right?"

"Right!" Yaz thrust her hands into her pockets.

They moved on upwards, past several more rooms that invited one to sit or lie down, until they reach the top of the tower. Steps led up to a viewing platform with a reclined seat and a telescope. A blonde woman was leaning back in the seat. Translucent tendrils snaked from her face and her hands into the seat behind her. Her eyes were closed as if in sleep.

"Doctor!" Yaz said.

Martha did a double take, matching this woman to the descriptions Yaz had given her of "her" Doctor.

"Oh Doctor!" Martha muttered. "Of course she'd skip all the boring restful rooms and then fall for the chance to see something interesting."

"How do we get her out?"

"Bare flesh right. Look it's only attached to her hands and face. It's not attached to her clothing and its not, like, tried to get us through the floor."

Yaz nodded and pulled the sleeves of her jacket down over her hands. Then she reached out and tugged at one of the tendrils attached to the Doctor's face. The Doctor's eyes flickered and the tendril came free. Martha pulled her own sleeves down and together they cleared the tendrils away levering the Doctor up off the seat. The Doctor's eyes opened.

"Yaz! Martha! Am I glad to see you!"

"Let's get you out of here Doctor," Martha said, pulling one of the Doctor's arms over her shoulder.

"Wait a moment. Let me get my bearings."

"Where's the Tardis?" Yaz asked.

"Had a bit of an accident with a transmat. Nothing I can't fix if I can find a bit of power somewhere, and maybe some exitronic circuits or any technology really."

"So you came to the tower like us, thinking there would be power here."

The Doctor nodded vigorously. "Power, technology, bits and pieces, you know, to build stuff out of."

Martha narrowed her eyes. "You don't actually have a transmat device to get back off this planet, do you?"

"Working on it," The Doctor said defensively.

Martha rolled back her sleeve to show the vortex manipulator.

"Oh, Martha Jones, I could kiss you!" The Doctor beamed.

"It's a bit on the blink and low on power," Yaz said.

"Well there's plenty of power here!"

"Here is not very friendly though," Martha pointed out.

"No it's not. A honey trap set to harvest power from anyone who chances by, I reckon. I wonder what happened to the people who built it. I'll have to look them up sometime. But, luckily, it's not that bright and we can use these." The Doctor grabbed at one of the tendrils that had previously trapped her in the observation platform.

"Careful," warned Martha.

"Oh, I'll be alright, so long as I don't hold it for too long. Now, give me your arm!"

Obediently Martha held out her arm. The Doctor fished in her pockets to produce a sonic screwdriver. Moments later the tendril was wired into the vortex manipulator.

"Now, I'll just reverse the polarity..." There was a small spark and several lights on the manipulator began to shine.

"Bob's your uncle!" said the Doctor triumphantly.

Martha smiled. "Now what?"

The Doctor took both Martha and Yaz by the hand. "Well, I've set the coordinates for the Tardis, so let's vamoose."

"We did mention the navigation is on the blink, didn't we?" said Yaz.

The Doctor grinned. "Yeah, but that'll just add to the fun."

Martha smiled to herself and activated the manipulator.

Together they went on their way.


End file.
